Tag Archives: Operations

GCD update

Posted on Tuesday 23 April 2013 | Leave a comment

Paul Quinn has very kindly sent on some recent photos of the work in progress at the Grand Canal Dock in Dublin. Two of the photos show the strengthening of Hanover Quay and the third shows the new slipway, which is now complete and in use. I’ve added the photos towards the end of the existing GCD page here.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Steamers, waterways, Waterways management

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More say he rose again

Posted on Tuesday 23 April 2013 | Leave a comment

Last September, I noted that the excellent KildareStreet.com website had been crippled by a change to the software used on the Oireachtas debates website. Life is too short to be spent ploughing through the witterings of politicians (unless you’re being paid to do so, of course), so KildareStreet.com’s search facility was invaluable, as was its emailing of alerts when my chosen keywords were mentioned. That flow of information ended in September.

Happily, though, the KildareStreet.com folk did not give up, readers donated funds, the rebuilt parts of the site are being tested and, yesterday, I got my first alert in over six months. Here, then, is the news about the Clones Sheugh, as seen from Kildare Street.

 

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Posted in Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, Uncategorized, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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It is notoriously known …

Posted on Monday 15 April 2013 | Leave a comment

… through the universal world that there be nine worthy and the best that ever were, as William Caxton so well put it. To the eight holders of licences to sell marked diesel along the Shannon must now be added Emerald Star in Belturbet on the Erne.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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Sinn Féin wants taxpayers’ money for Clones sheugh

Posted on Wednesday 10 April 2013 | 4 comments

The Impartial Reporter reports (impartially) that “Councillors press for Ulster Canal funding to be released”. The two councillors quoted are Thomas O’Reilly of Fermanagh District Council and Pat Treanor of Monaghan County Council. Both are members of Sinn Féin.

Cllr Treanor is quoted as saying “Once the Government release the funding ….” Cllr Treanor seems to have missed the point that “the funding” does not exist: the [RoI] government has not got the money and, as I have pointed out here many times, no money was set aside for the Ulster Canal. He says that …

… we would in the interim call upon all living in the local community, from Derrykerrib to Clones to begin to think about taking advantage of the obvious business opportunities that this reopening will bring.

If the members of the local community have any money, they might be better advised to invest it in Swiss bank accounts. Or even Bitcoins.

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Posted in Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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Can wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Posted on Tuesday 9 April 2013 | 1 comment

Or love in a golden bowl?

My mole doesn’t know, but diesel can be put in a boat’s fuel tank at Silver Line in Banagher, the latest addition to the roll of honour: the traders holding licences to sell marked diesel [.xls] along the Shannon.

The eight licensed sellers are (north to south):

  • CarrickCraft, Carrick-on-Shannon
  • Emerald Star, Carrick-on-Shannon
  • Rooskey Craft & Tackle, Rooskey Quay
  • Hanley’s Marina, Ballyleague (opposite Lanesborough)
  • Quigley’s Marina, Killinure, Lough Ree
  • CarrickCraft, Banagher
  • Silver Line, Banagher
  • Emerald Star, Portumna.

The excitement is too much for me. I think I’ll lie down for a bit.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways

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Raising the Royal

Posted on Wednesday 3 April 2013 | Leave a comment

I have remarked before that …

Ewan Duffy of IndustrialHeritageIreland and I have both, in recent times, uncovered new information about the history of the Royal Canal after it was taken over by the Midland Great Western Railway in 1845: a period that, because (I think) of the absence of company archives, is not well covered in published histories of the Royal.

Ewan has now published a splendid piece of research showing that the Dublin end of the Royal Canal, from Newcomen Bridge (Lock 1) to Cross Guns Bridge (Lock 5), was extensively rebuilt during the second half of the nineteenth century. This is, as far as I know, entirely new information. It gains further interest from the interaction between different concerns — canal, railway, tramway, drainage — all contending for the same small space in Dublin.

I have no doubt that there is yet more to be discovered about the Royal’s lost century.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, The cattle trade, waterways, Waterways management

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No blue guitar

Posted on Tuesday 2 April 2013 | Leave a comment

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said ‘You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.’
The man replied ‘Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.’

Wallace Stevens The Man with the Blue Guitar [1937]

The guitarist has not been active on the Shannon, where there has been no change in the list of holders of marked fuel trader’s licences [.xls].

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, waterways, Waterways management

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The fuel on the hill …

Posted on Thursday 28 March 2013 | Leave a comment

… may be plentiful but, according to today’s file, it seems there are still only seven licensed traders in marked fuel on the Shannon.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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The Charles Wye Williams bridge campaign

Posted on Friday 22 March 2013 | 1 comment

Dublin City Council has published its call for proposals for naming the new bridge across the Liffey. According to RTE, various bolshies and literary types have been suggested, as though we didn’t have enough of them (and of politicians too). Accordingly, I have submitted an application suggesting that the bridge be named after a successful entrepreneur who understood technology and created employment: Charles Wye Williams, the Father of the Shannon, whose fleet of nine steamers and fifty-two barges gave us the Shannon as we know it today.

I will be happy to send a copy (PDF) of my application to anyone who is willing to support it.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, shannon estuary, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, waterways, Waterways management

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WI CEO salary

Posted on Friday 22 March 2013 | 2 comments

In 2005 the Waterways Ireland CEO earned £86590. Subsequent annual reports have not disclosed the CEO’s earnings; the report for 2011 says this:

WI salaries

Martin is the CEO; Russell, Brownsmith, D’Arcy and Dennany are (or were: Dennany has since retired) Directors, and thus senior to the three regional managers whose earnings have been disclosed. I think we can assume, therefore, that all five earned more than €100,000, which is £85,187.65 at the moment.

According to the information booklet for the CEO’s job, published here today [downloadable .doc],

The salary range for the position is sterling and as follows: £61,217- £84,630. Salary at appointment will be at the minimum point of the scale.

So it seems likely that the new CEO will be earning considerably less than the outgoing CEO, than the senior directors and than the regional managers, and perhaps less than other staff.

There is a defined benefit pension, though, which is a rara avis these days.

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Posted in Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Operations, People, Politics, Sources, waterways, Waterways management

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